


(Un)Controlled Truths and (Nearly) Partial Lies

by Piehead



Series: The Honesty Of Our Dishonesty [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, My walking disaster child and his angry boyfriend, Plus their concerned best friend, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-18 22:43:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9406043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piehead/pseuds/Piehead
Summary: A first impression can define a relationship. They shouldn't have let it define theirs.





	1. The Lies We (Can't) Tell

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! Hi! Hello! This is cross posted from my tumblr, baba-nurse, where I was prompted by several wonderful anons to write this soulmate au where you have to tell your soulmate the truth. Like Dex in this story I took a few liberties.
> 
> Please, enjoy!

They’ve been avoiding each other for days.

When you met your soulmate, it became impossible to lie to them. You could try whatever you wanted; to write it down, to tell someone else. If it came to your soulmate it was the truth or nothing. And for Nursey it was so much easier to say nothing. He felt like he couldn’t say anything without saying what he  _ felt _ . And if Dex started to question him--if things went beyond just hello he knew the mask he’d created so carefully would crumble.

“The truth will set you free.”

Nursey had never believed that. He had seen what the “truth” could do to people.

“You guys can’t avoid each other forever,” Chowder sighed when Nursey flopped down next to him on the couch.

Nursey said nothing, pulling his legs up and leaning against Chowder. He dove immediately into his phone, shooting messages between group chats and study chats at lightning speed.

“Come on, Derek.” Chowder’s use of Nursey’s name made him want to cringe. It was far more intimate than nicknames were, a sign of how worried for Nursey Chowder really was.

“If I don’t say anything I can’t get hurt,” Nursey finally sighed.

“What are you afraid of?”

Nursey hesitated in his answer. He had no reason to lie to Chowder.

“You and Farmer hit off, like, from the beginning, man. You told her exactly how you felt and you meant it.” Nursey reached a hand up to push his fingers into his hair. He gave his scalp a scratch.

“You weren’t honest with Dex?” Chowder knew it was impossible that they hadn’t been honest with each other. From the first moment you said the truth to them.

“I completely fucked my first meeting with Dex up, Chris.”

_ The tour hadn’t even started yet and already Derek had a bad feeling about things. Shitty went to Samwell, one of the most progressive schools in the country, but it was more of a fuck you to his dad and grandparents than anything else. Derek had wanted to attend because they were a one in four school and their English program was one of the best in the world. _

_ But there was something that left him feeling strange about being at Samwell. Something was going to change. Something big. _

_ “Oh, are you touring Faber, too?” someone from behind him asked. _

_ Derek turned around and there were others standing there, a group of guys that looked more than a bit tired, since they had a tour of Faber before the tour of the school. _

_ “Yeah,” Derek responded, getting a good look at the guy. He reminded Nursey of a fire in a way; bright reds and oranges in his face and hair. “I’m Derek.” _

_ “Will.” He seemed to sense something about Derek as well. _

_ “You, um.” Derek didn’t know what to say. So he said what he was thinking. “You’re abnormally red.” _

_ “Excuse me?” Will looked surprised to hear a declaration like that. _

_ “And you’ve got lots of freckles. You look like a speckled egg.” _

_ Derek stopped talking, his eyes wide with surprise at his own words. He was usually so good at keeping things in, what was wrong now? _

_ “Thanks, asshole. I thought you were cute but now you just look like a dick,” Will scoffed, looking rather disappointed in Derek. Before Derek could even apologize, their tour guide showed up. Larissa was small but commanding and left Derek with the impression of someone who wasn’t to be trifled with. She had a whole hockey team backing her, after all. _

“You didn’t just apologize?” Chowder stopped typing at his computer, programming homework forgotten.

“No? He didn’t give me a chance to.” Nursey shrugged. “And I tried to do the whole, second first impression thing but he just. Wouldn’t give me a chance.”

And then from there all they did was argue, constantly telling the truth of what they were thinking, until Dex had said some pretty hurtful shit. And then they were avoiding each other, constantly. Well. Nursey was keeping away from Dex wherever he could, that is. If he didn’t have to see Dex he didn’t have to talk to him, and he didn’t have to worry about all the awful truths.

“I think it’s stupid that you two let a first encounter define your entire relationship,” Chowder shrugged. “I mean, it’s none of my business. But as a friend? You two really need to work on things.”

“I tried, man.” Nursey blinked back a few tears. He had tried so  _ hard _ . “But I can only do so much with a guy who told me he wished he wasn’t my soul mate.”


	2. The Truths That (Won't) Come Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Numero dos~! I should really post my notes as well but, eh.

Chowder waved goodbye as Nursey departed from the Haus, headed to his dorm room to get ready for a poetry event that night. He had invited Chowder to go with him but the goalie had simple shook his head, reminding Nursey that he still had programming to do. Nursey had just shrugged, giving Chowder a quick hug and then taking off.

Chowder heard the creak of footsteps.

“Oh, Bitty, you’re- Dex,” Chowder had expected to see Bitty emerge from the kitchen. He was rather surprised to see Dex instead, who looked more than a bit unsettled. Chowder frowned immediately. “Were you-?”

“I wasn’t eavesdropping,” Dex said, cutting Chowder off. “I wasn’t-- I just happened to overhear.”

Chowder didn’t entirely believe that.

“Chowder, I-”

“You’re hurting him.” It was such a simple declaration. Three words, one of which was a contraction. Present tense. Object.

Dex focused on the sentence structure, taking it apart and reconstructing it again and again over and over until they were the only thing in his mind, repeated over and over, again and again, until Dex had to stop thinking about them. Until he couldn’t keep thinking about them. Chowder didn’t have any reasons to lie to Nursey or Dex. He was their friend and he would tell them the truth.

Even when they didn’t want to hear it.

“What is with you two?” Chowder finally sighed, leaning back on the couch, “I mean, you’re literally made for each other. The universe  _ made _ you for each other!”

Dex snorted. That was some Bitty level philosophy right there, or maybe even Ransom and Holster. Either way it came from someone who had hit it off pretty well with his soulmate from the start. Chowder came from a home where his parents were soulmates. He didn’t understand why Dex had to keep his distance with Nursey.

“You don’t get it,” Dex finally said, shaking his head.

“Don’t get what? That you’re still holding onto a grudge after a  _ year? _ Will, what do you have to lose?” And there were the first names.

_ Everything, _ Dex’s mind supplied.

“You just don’t understand,” and Dex wasn’t making an effort to help Chowder understand either.

“What am I not understanding?!” The goalie was growing very frustrated now. He could typically keep a level head with Dex or Nursey, but soulmate business was serious business. He hated seeing his friends fight and he hated even more seeing one of them hurt, even if by the other.

“That sometimes the universe makes a mistake!” Dex finally blurted out, his fury leaving him, “Sometimes the universe puts the wrong people together and they make--and only bad things come from them…”

Now, Christopher Chow was a Computer Science major, with a focus in Cyber Security. He was no fool, not by a long shot, and he could be very perceptive. He considered William Poindexter and Derek Nurse his best friends and because of that they were incredibly transparent to him.

Yet, they always seemed too opaque with each other.

“Did you tell Nursey that?” Chowder frowned. Dex’s silence was all Chowder needed. “ _ Will. _ ”

“So what if I did, okay? So what if I told him that the universe makes mistakes and that not every pair of soulmates is meant to end happy and with a child that isn’t completely fucked up because of their parents?” The aggression in Dex’s voice made Chowder sad, because there seemed to be the root of the entire problem. Dex  _ never _ talked about his home life.

“Will, your parents were-?” Chowder stopped, because the angry tears in Dex’s eyes were a bit much even for him, and the overwhelming and raw  _ sorrow _ that suddenly filled his heart made him close his laptop and stand up, crossing the room to pull Dex into a hug without a moment’s hesitation.

Dex didn’t know how to respond except to just stand there, his arms limp at his sides and his face pressed into Chowder’s hoodie.

“It was never about Nursey,” Chowder finally realized. It was about Dex, and how Dex felt like  _ he _ was the fuck up. A lot of the clouds seemed to dissipate.

“He’s too good,” Dex said uselessly. “He’s too…  _ nice _ . Clumsy and open and different and sunshine and everything I’m not and I would  _ ruin  _ him, Chris, I would  _ fucking ruin _ him…”

Chowder seriously doubted that. Nursey was a lot of things; easily broken was not one of them. The entire time Nursey had been thinking something was wrong with  _ him _ when in reality Dex was too afraid of his own insecurities.

“You need to talk to him,” Chowder finally stated, pulling back from Dex, whose face was redder than usual from the tears he refused to acknowledge.

“ _ How _ ?” Dex had never learned how to be straightforward with people. His parents… they taught him a crooked way of getting around the truth. If you were vague and cryptic and knew how to word your sentences then you weren’t technically lying to your soulmate. But you weren’t necessarily telling the truth either.

“ _ Tell him _ that none of this is his fault. Tell him that  _ you _ were being selfish, that  _ you _ were too afraid to tell the truth.” Chowder paused. “Which, now that I think about it, is strange, because you should’ve been telling him the truth from the beginning.”

“It-- it’s not that easy,” Dex stuttered. Chowder wasn’t having it.

“Look him in the eye. And start with ‘I’m sorry’ because Nursey didn’t deserve the treatment you’ve given him. From one bro to another, it was totally not swawesome.”

The ending statement helped to lighten the mood a bit, and Dex managed a tiny laugh.

“I’ll try,” Dex nodded slowly. He had to admit, it was starting to grow painfully hard to ignore the ache in his chest. Being apart from his soulmate emotionally left him feeling hollow most days.

“Good. You can probably catch him before his poetry thing. He said it’s in the Student Center, I think?” Chowder’s eyes seemed to twinkle suddenly. “Maybe it can be your first date!”

Dex appreciated Chowder’s optimism.

“I’m gonna go see if I can’t catch him.” He headed towards the door before pausing. “Yo, Chris?”

Chowder looked up from where he was starting to settle at his laptop again. “Yeah, Will?”

“Thanks. For everything.”

Chowder practically beamed.

.

.

.

.

.

.

If Nursey and Dex seemed to argue less, if they lingered close together in the locker room and their game on the ice better than it had ever been, well. It was no one’s business. Chowder smiled every time he saw their hands brush together. He was glad he could help two of the most important people in his life.

The universe didn’t make mistakes.


	3. The Freedom We (Don't) Crave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And part three.

When Will was little, he played witness to something he knew was private, a moment between his parents that sparked the tiniest bit of hope in his hearts about soulmates. His mother and father and sat together, for once talking about things openly and without the barriers of false words and cryptic messages to hide their truths. It was a moment he knew he wasn’t actually meant to see; his mother and father had _very_ intense feelings about being forced to tell the truth constantly.

They had gotten better with age but it hardly changed that he’d spent the majority of high school talking in riddles to everyone around him to avoid a soulmate that probably wouldn’t want him. It was a bad coping mechanism, he knew, but it was the only one he had for a long, long time. As far as Will was concerned, it had kept him protected from a relationship that would have deteriorated with time because of his inability to be truthful.

When he came to Samwell and met Derek… he knew. It was so obvious somehow before Derek even spoke and he just _knew_. He knew that Derek was his better half, he knew that Derek was meant to be the light of his life, he knew that Derek was everything he could have possibly needed and had never known he needed.

He knew their “curse” and he knew that Derek was bound to it as he was, likely not aware of the best way to get around telling the truth. And he let that get to him; Will had allowed it to seed itself in his mind and he almost hadn’t enrolled.

And yet.

And yet the minute they were apart his chest felt empty. He finally understood why his parents stayed together even with so many arguments. The moments in between them; when their hearts felt full and the quiet lulled them to peace. Even when they argued they stayed together, when they were mad at each other they still went to bed with one another. They were soulmates and they wouldn’t be apart because being alone wasn’t worth it.

Will never wanted to be apart from Derek, but every time they were together one of them said something, and there were arguments, and Will couldn’t remember his riddles and half-truths that he could bend around the will of being soulmates. Even when he remembered that his parents were still together he also remembered that all their time fighting had completely ruined him and his perception of soulmates.

Will didn’t want Derek to be tainted the same way.

So yeah, he told Derek that sometimes the universe made mistakes, because Will honestly believed he shouldn’t _have_ a soulmate, especially not someone like Derek. And. He had seen the way it hurt Derek. The silence was all he needed, the look of complete sadness that had welled in Derek’s eyes before Derek disappeared driving the stake in further. The ache in Will’s chest turned into full on pain, and he didn’t sleep that night.

He was so blinded by his own selfishness that he didn’t see the damage that could be done until it was too late. Then Derek didn’t want to speak to him past being on the ice.

It hurt.

Now, though.

Now, things were different. Now he owed Derek a billion and one apologies, now he needed to go to his soulmate and make things right. Even if they couldn’t be what they _needed_ to be for each other immediately, they could start out as friends. Will owed Derek that much, if Derek would take it.

“Dex?”

Dex looked up just in time to spy Nursey walking with a group of people. He looked stunning, in Dex’s honest opinion, even if he was wearing all black. When he wasn’t busy trying to push him away, Dex really wanted to be close to him.

“You know practice is in the morning, right?” Nursey smiled, but Dex could tell he was on edge.

“Is this the guy you wrote that poem about?” one of the girls to Nursey’s left asked. Dex recognized her; Sydney Hale. She was in his Python class.

“ _Sid_ ,” Nursey groaned, but the way the group seemed to interact, smiling and laughing, it made Dex feel incredibly distance. They were feet away and yet he felt like he needed to cross a chasm.

“Can we talk, Nurse?” Dex finally mustered up and said, because now was always infinitely better than later.

“Can it wait? I kind of need to get somewhere.” His friends seemed to be able to read the atmosphere perfectly well, because the moment Dex seemed ready to argue, one of the taller guys stepped in.

“We’re gonna be late,” he said, voice simple and deep. He was probably Nursey’s type, too. Maybe they were meant to be soulmates instead.

“No, it’s-- I’ll catch up.”

The group seemed reluctant to leave their friend behind with Dex (for good reason, Dex wouldn’t have left Nursey alone with him either) but they eventually started moving. Dex waited until they were out of earshot before looking Nursey in his eyes. Well, as well as he could with Nursey avoiding his gaze.

“What are you doing here?” Nursey asked.

Dex took a deep breath. No half truths. No cryptic messages. Nothing to hide what he meant.

“I’m here to tell you I’m sorry for acting like an asshole because of my own insecurities. And because Chowder told me I was hurting you and, God, I feel like shit when I know I’m hurting you,” Dex let the truth flow like tub juice at a Kegster. A simple question could really get a person going.

“And honestly I’m not sure if I even deserve to have you humoring me after all I’ve done to you _because_ of my insecurities and need to be in control of my own life without some designation telling me that I have to be honest with my soulmate.”

Nursey looked surprised. “Dex--”

“And I did really, really, like you when we first met but I couldn’t get past this mental barrier that I didn’t need a soulmate and I let our first impression stay with me for a year when I should’ve just let it go and you really, really, didn’t deserve that or any of the treatment I gave you--” Dex took in a breath, his face red. Nursey tried to get a word in but Dex just continued, “--And every time we argued I thought I was doing something right because I still got the full feeling in my chest because you were close to me and I never want to be apart from you and I’ve been causing all the problems--”

“That’s not entirely true--” Nursey tried to say, because even he could own up to his faults, but Dex just continued powering through.

“--And I love you, Derek, I really do, and I’m fine if you don’t feel the same because of how I treated you I just need you to know that I actually do no matter what I do or say to you that says otherwise and I never wanted us to be like my parents and--”

Dex stopped. “I don’t want us to be unhappy, and I can’t ever promise that I won’t slip back into old habits. But I want you to help me be better, because you make me better. Can we start over?”

Nursey stared at Dex, who was breathing heavily from his long winded explanation. Dex felt like an entire weight had been lifted from his chest; this must have been why his parents were able to lay down together after a day of arguing, because of that moment when they sat and they were honest with each other. He felt like he’d just come out of a spa in a way, his body refreshed because he wasn’t hiding anything anymore.

“I’m gonna be honest too. It hurt. A lot. The way you treated me,” Nursey stated. He had never really been able to speak in the half truths and cryptic lies. “And… It confused me, a lot of the time, and you aren’t completely at fault all of the time, because I get frustrated and start unnecessary shit too.”

Honesty was easy for him. Dex had to admit that he… admired that about Nursey.

“But it’s a two way street, Will. Fuck, you gotta open up and be willing.” Nursey smiled suddenly, breaking the tension easily and, damn, Dex could hardly believe how much he loved this boy. “ _Willing_.”

“Shut up,” Dex snorted, the smile that stretched across his face coming easier than anything seemed to in the past year.

Nursey’s own smile softened, and he held out his hand to Dex. Dex looked at it, a bit confused.

“Since we’re starting over,” Nursey shrugged. “Derek Nurse. Nice to meet you. You’re _adorably_ red.”

Dex had to smother a laugh in his throat. “William Poindexter. I was gonna say you look cute but… no, I’m gonna say you look cute.”

They shook hands.

.

.

.

.

.

.

“Good job, Goalie,” one John Johnson said to Chowder. Chowder shrugged.

“The universe doesn’t make mistakes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I plan to post more in this universe, timestamps if you will. I loved it enough that I most certainly will be writing more for it. I think we'll call this... the Honesty Of Our Dishonesty?


End file.
